Disclaimer:
I do not own any of these
characters and am just playing around with them.
From The Sky
A
young, unidentified man stood in chains in the courtroom of Judge Alan Schmidt.
His court-appointed attorney stood beside him.
The prisoner was in his mid twenties, if they had to guess, when he was
captured by the police for the kidnapping of Harriet Tashman.
“How
do you plead?” Judge Schmidt
asked, eyeing the prisoner coldly. His
lawyer cleared his throat and looked at his client uncertainly.
The young man only looked at his hands and rubbed the scar between his
right thumb and forefinger.
“Guilty.”
His lawyer replied.
Judge
Schmidt noticed the look of pure jubilation on the prosecutor’s face and then
continued to glare at the prisoner. The
prosecutor set the State’s terms of sentencing for the young man standing
before him.
Life
imprisonment. This man didn’t
deserve anything else. As Judge
Schmidt looked at him he saw no remorse. This
man could care less, and that was the thing about him that was more frightening
than any other. He stood there,
with his shoulders back, setting his jaw and staring at the judge defiantly.
By
all accounts, the man had just fallen from the sky. No birth certificate, no fingerprints on record, and no
social security number. No family,
not even a name. According to every
record, this man did not exist until a few months before and that was at the
beginning of his long cross-country run of violent felonies.
When
he’d terrorized and kidnapped Harriet Tashman, she’d had it in her to wreck
the car he forced her to drive which led to his capture. Prior to that he’d committed armed robberies, multiple acts
of arson, as well as assault with a deadly weapon.
His
crimes had all seemed like random, sporadic acts of violence. Then, he’d made
a directive of sending threatening letters and making threatening phone calls to
the former nun who lived quietly in her apartment in Upstate New York.
This
man was no better than an animal. He’d
fought with the arresting officers and guards at the holding facility.
One hapless soul who’d brought this man food wound up in the hospital
weeks earlier soiling himself and crying for his mother.
But
there was something behind his eyes. Judge
Schmidt had looked into them and seen the coldness within.
This man was very dangerous, and since it was up to him, this man would
never again see the light of day.
He
ordered life imprisonment. The
prisoner didn’t look surprised. The
only time the young man’s expression had changed was when he was led past an
old man who stood, holding an oxygen tank by the handle in his right hand.
Judge Schmidt would remember the hatred in that expression for the rest
of his days.
To Be Continued…
Feedback is Welcome!
melvansickle@earthlink.net
